15 Days to Go: INSPIRATION
Let's talk about some of the games, books, and films that inspired Arthur Lives!
Probably the most obvious influence on the game is Matt Wagner's MAGE, specifically the first volume of that series, which came out 1984-1986, right as I was transitioning from high school to undergrad at the University of Nevada, Reno. For those who have not read MAGE, it tells the story of Kevin Matchstick, who discovers in the second-to-last issue (spoilers for a 30 year old comic) that he is the Pendragon reborn. There are some unforgettable sequences in Mage, such as the scene in which Kevin pulls a glowing baseball bat out of a dumpster, re-enacting the Sword in the Stone, and it made a huge impression on me. Several concepts from MAGE I simply lifted and dropped into AL, such as the notion of "dressing" a Faerie creature in human shape so that it could (barely) pass in our world. The other characters in the comic -- Edsel and Mirth and Sean -- are all great examples of AL protagonists, and the Redcaps, Marhault Ogre, and Cromm Cruach all served as inspiration when it came time to make the bestiary. Now, MAGE is a superhero book, and Kevin's powers are more superhuman than I wanted to deal with in AL, but its also very grounded, and that was something I wanted to capture. It needed to feel not only real, but relevant. The second volume of the series was interesting, but it was less about King Arthur, and at the time it came out, it didn't sing to me as the first volume did. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the third volume, which Wagner recently announced, and I think I'll use it as an occasion to reread the whole saga over again.
A second very important influence, also a comic, was Brian Bolland and Mike Barr's CAMELOT 3000. This was the first long limited series DC comics put out; at the time, they called it a "Maxi-Series," but I suspect that sounded a bit too much like a feminine hygiene product, and the label is no longer used. It came out in 1982-83, mostly, but the final issue was delayed a long time. I was still on an allowance at this time, and could not afford to buy the monthly issues, so I read them in the aisle as they came out, one at a time, and hit my local Sav-On Drug Store. Barr's story of Arthur resurrected in the 30th century was fun, but it was the reincarnated knights who had the real interesting parts. They had normal lives, but also had to balance an Arthurian identity which they had just remembered. That moment when each of them suddenly remembers who they were became AL!s "Recognition," and the powerful chapter in which Arthur asks an adulterous and unrepentant Gwen and Lancelot, "You had a second chance to do things right, why did you make the same decision?" has never left me, informing the "Second chance" theme of AL. But the most memorable character in C3K is certainly Tristan, when the knight is reincarnated into the body of a woman, only to find that "she" is about to be married, and that Iseult is also around (and has no intention of allowing Tristan's new gender to stand in her way). Tristan's torment, the tension between what he perceives as his assigned gender role and his impossible love for Iseult, is the beating heart at the center of this book, and I learned from it. I learned that I could use this game to create a space where it would be possible to discuss and explore transgender issues in an interesting, fun, and creative way. I don't pretend to have any privileged knowledge on the topic, but by introducing the idea that Guinevere could come back as a man, or Arthur as a woman, I think Arthur Lives became a better game.
Finally, I have to talk about Greg Stafford's PENDRAGON. If, like most gamers, you have never played this RPG, you are missing out on the masterpiece of one of the hobby's greatest creators. PENDRAGON is the King Arthur RPG, and in it players play knights who are contemporaries of Arthur. For many gamers, the obstacle is simple: they don't want to be second fiddle to famous characters like Lancelot (who will always be better than the PCs), and they don't want to play a campaign which they see as pre-determined. Because there are some elements of the Arthurian myth which players really should not, or even cannot, change. No PC is going to draw the Sword in the Stone. You can't prevent Lancelot and Guinevere's affair, or kill Mordred before he becomes a problem. And that plot turns off a lot of players -- the same players who don't want to play a game set in, for example, Westeros or Middle-earth. Because they feel they're being "railroaded."
Well, that's not a problem in ARTHUR LIVES! I was inspired by Stafford's unmatched knowledge of the Arthurian canon, particularly in regards to the canon's compatibility with roleplaying games. Stafford has gone through virtually every Arthurian text we have and adapted them into adventures. He's written up all the giants, dragons, and witches as monsters to fight, and he's given game stats to every knight, queen, and enchanter he stumbled across. Although the rules for playing magicians were later cut from the game, his approach to magic was a tremendous influence on me, because he'd developed a list of magical powers based on the source material, a list I could use as a foundation for developing my own magic system using Fate Core.
There are many other sources which went into ARTHUR LIVES! It's fair to say, for example, that Joss Whedon's television shows -- especially Buffy and Firefly -- helped me figure out how player character groups should come together and operate. But these three -- MAGE, CAMELOT 3000, and PENDRAGON -- were the first influences, the bedrock on which everything else was built.
We're so close...just 11 days left...
